


Fragment One

by playwrightfate



Series: Asra and Calixta: Of Things Lost and Found [1]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Fluff, Healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23668624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playwrightfate/pseuds/playwrightfate
Summary: It's a quiet day at the shop. Calixta tries to focus on some potion preparation but she is distracted today. Her eyes keep wandering in Asra's direction.Part of a collection of drabbles, oneshots and prompts with Asra and my apprentice Calixta.
Relationships: Apprentice/Asra (The Arcana), Asra (The Arcana)/Original Character(s), Asra (The Arcana)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Asra and Calixta: Of Things Lost and Found [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1704235
Kudos: 15





	Fragment One

She’s supposed to be concentrating on the potion she’s making. A little bit of nettle root extract, a drop of rose essential oil, a pinch of… but she is distracted today. She finds her eyes keep wandering back to him, sitting across the counter, his head lazily supported by his right hand, his left keeping a voluminous grimoire open. _Asra_. Unlike her, he is absorbed by his task. She knows because he is biting his lower lip the same way he does when he’s trying to understand the casting of a particularly complex spell or when he is watching over her while she tries to master a new charm. She smiles at the memory of when she almost burned the house down once. Even then, he had been so patient, so gentle with her. Sometimes she wonders if anything could ever make him lose his calm or anger him. She tries to be the same way with herself. Understanding. But it proves difficult. Like when he asks her to prepare a sleeping draught for one of their clients and she spends her time looking at him instead. So, what was next, she thinks, taking the recipe in her hands again, trying to regain control over herself. A pinch of dried valerian, that’s what she needs to add next. But like a beacon, his incandescent aura is calling to her and her eyes fall back on him again and again. 

The late afternoon golden light filtered through the purple-tinted glass dances across his features and the potion threatens to be long forgotten now. She is hypnotised. He’s beautiful. The thought almost knocks the breath out of her. It’s unexpected, sudden, but it’s there. He is beautiful. There are often a million half-formed thoughts that swirl in her mind when she looks at him, when she thinks about him. She doesn’t know what to do with them sometimes; she does not always understand what she feels. Everything is so overwhelming, still. So new. It’s been two years since she awoke in his arms, in this shop with no idea of who or what she was. In his shop. Or _their shop_ , he would tell her. “It’s your place, your home too” he’d say. She had started to believe him. It was cramped, packed with magical artefacts, covers, cushions, plants, vials of all kinds. Terribly messy but in such a cozy and reassuring way. The warm tones, the ever-lingering smell of incense, the smoking teapots at all hours of the day or night. She felt better there than anywhere else. She did not crave great spaces, especially not in the early days. She needed a space she could fathom, somewhere to settle. She needed a nest, a warm embrace. And he had given that to her. 

He had given a lot back to her in two years. Her name. A sense of belonging. An equilibrium she had so violently lost. He had also given meaning back to the world. Most of the times, at least. There were always moments when her head would spin with its terrifying strangeness, with the agony of being her. A being without memory, without beginning. Her identity was still a blur. Who had she been before? What had happened to her? Asra could not tell her. Or he wouldn’t. The pounding started in her head with the same stabbing pain that would always come whenever she thought too much of her past. Or tried to. 

“Calixta? Are you ok?” Lost in her thoughts she had not noticed that he in turn had been observing her and that her sudden change of expression, her face twisting with pain, had made him instantly leap to his feet, ready to rush to her, help her with anything she would need. An impulse. After her awakening, she had spent days in a state of constant anxiety and panic. Unable to eat or sleep. Moaning and shaking like a thing possessed. Split into a million restless pieces. On the verge of dying in a space where even death did not sound like a relief, where living inside herself was frightening. And Asra had spent his time desperately trying to soothe her and salvage anything he could, preserve some of her sanity with soft whispers, gentle caresses, herbal brews. A few spells too. Those first timeless hours were now a hazy and repressed impression her memory was trying to bury for good. With time, reality had started to make sense and she had been able to control those terror outbreaks better and better. Asra had taught her how to breathe in those moments and how to focus her mind on anything that would help her calm down. He probably did not know he was the first thing she would think of, always. Her remedy, her true sense of calm, of home. When needed, she would think of incense, warm spices, smoked tea. Of white hair and gold necklaces, of burgundy scarves and violet eyes and of the reassuring feeling of cold snake scales undulating against one’s skin. And she would find peace. 

Standing still, only a few steps away from her now, giving her space but ready to act if she needed him, Asra is looking at her, worried. But she smiles at him now as the pain already subsides. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” 

And thus reassured, albeit glancing at her more often than before, he smiles back and returns to his seat. And she tries to go back to her preparation. But her eyes keep wandering back to him. 


End file.
